Crop Talk by IAS – 06/25/26

Crop Talk by IAS – Field Scouting Update | June 25

Post applications are pushing ahead as fields begin to dry, but variability is still the common theme across Iowa. What we’re seeing in the field right now is a mix of progress and pressure—wet soils, uneven crop color, and fast-moving weeds are driving a lot of decisions.

In this week’s Crop Talk, the agronomy team shares boots-on-the-ground insights on post timing, weed control challenges, and how crop conditions are responding as weather patterns shift.

In this episode, the team discusses:

• Post herbicide progress in corn and soybeans across regions
• Crop recovery following recent wind events and saturated soils
• Yellowing corn and soybeans tied to moisture and compaction
• Waterhemp pressure and decisions around second and third passes
• Spray timing challenges with cool, cloudy conditions
• Coverage considerations and how canopy closure affects application decisions
• Residual herbicide strategy vs. “cleanup” applications
• Field-by-field decision-making based on weed pressure and crop stage
• Early disease considerations and what to watch as humidity persists
• Fungicide timing in soybeans and corn, including R1 vs. R3 considerations

Conditions still vary field-by-field. Staying timely, adjusting to what each field needs, and continuing to scout will be critical in the weeks ahead.

Featured this week:
Owen Heetland - Northwest Region Agronomist (Cleves) 
Melissa Schumann - Northeast Region Agronomist 
Nicholas Giesseman - Host and Eastern Region Agronomist 

🎧 Listen now
Have a question for the team? Send it to CropTalk@InnovativeAg.com

To learn more about Innovative Ag Services and our agronomy services, visit InnovativeAg.com/Agronomy.

Produced by IAS Communications in partnership with My Four Creative.

Transcript

00;00;00;27 - 00;00;08;28
Nicholas
Welcome to Crop Talk, brought to you by Innovative AG Services. And this is our field Scouting special.

00;00;09;00 - 00;00;34;03
Nicholas
Each week from March through October, our agronomy team shares timely boots on the ground updates from across the eyes geography so you can make confident decisions as the seasons change. Today you'll hear a quick regional update from our ears agronomists, including what we're seeing in the fields right now. What to keep an eye on next, and a few practical scouting reminders you can put to work this week.

00;00;34;06 - 00;00;42;19
Nicholas
I'm your host, Nicholas. Let's get things kicked off this week. I'm going to send it over to own land in our northwest region. Oh, what do you got for us?

00;00;42;21 - 00;01;06;03
Owen
This is only in the northwest region, covering Hardin, Grundy, Butler and Franklin counties. Again, we've been wet like we have the last couple of weeks. Hopefully this week it looks like we'll start to dry out and continue to see things move along. Corn is looking very good. We had to wind event probably two weeks ago, and it looks like most of the corn has stood back up.

00;01;06;03 - 00;01;32;23
Owen
Very little green snap, a little bit of gooseneck, but overall looks really really good. Been spraying. We are probably, I would say 75 to 90% done. Second pass on beans. And as Nicholas alluded to we'll talk a little bit about spring and beans as we already have guys that will probably us included, start to pull the trigger on some Reese Bray's in areas where the water hemp got, you know, a little bit out of control.

00;01;32;24 - 00;02;02;24
Owen
Other than that, not really seeing a whole lot corn is, you know, fully switched over to the to the root mass moving down and starting to get into some of the nitrogen. I would fully expect us to start to see some yellowing, maybe some compaction and nitrogen issues in areas, especially in minority ground. Beans are a little bit yellow in spots because it has been so wet and a little bit cooler, but it looks like after rain tomorrow, we finally start to heat up a little bit more and slow the rain down.

00;02;02;24 - 00;02;13;14
Owen
So I would expect those to start to switch off and turn a little bit greener. With that, I will kick it up to the northeast to Melissa.

00;02;13;21 - 00;02;40;09
Melissa
Thanks, Owen. Melissa Schumann here in our office covering Clayton County and the extreme northeast corner of Iowa. And very similar to last week's update, we had rain events as well. So today we are finishing up the last of our post corn, then going to be focusing heavy on post bean applications here. Unlike Owen, this is just our second pass here.

00;02;40;09 - 00;02;58;10
Melissa
But still the water hemp is showing its ugly head and we're trying to get ahead of it. So that's kind of our main focus and keep looking forward to the warmer days. The last couple of days of sunshine has really made a difference on the crops and helped them come out of the wet, soggy, sickly looking that they've had.

00;02;58;10 - 00;03;04;11
Melissa
So that's a great turn of events. I'm going to kick it down to Nicholas in our eastern region.

00;03;04;13 - 00;03;25;08
Nicholas
Thank you very much, Melissa, for that update. From the north there I'm Nicholas Gisborne, covering the southeast region, mainly Dubuque and Jackson counties. Kind of the same thing going down here. We're wrapping up our corn spraying for the year after all these, you know what, rain days. So trying to get that accomplished here today and then going to roll into kind of the post being just like you said there, we're the lucky ones.

00;03;25;08 - 00;03;39;24
Nicholas
We don't have, you know, the heavy pressure that they have out west. So we are just on our second pass as well. But I know there is a few guys that have already sprayed their second pass that are looking at, are we going to have to do a third pass here in a couple of weeks to keep things clean before things get to the full canopy?

00;03;39;25 - 00;03;54;26
Nicholas
You know, we're seeing some early set disease coming in with all this moisture. We're really keeping an eye on that around here. You know, watching out especially for tar spot disease in hay fields, people pushing their cutting back here with all this moisture, just really keeping an eye on stuff and, you know, making sure we're staying on top of things down here.

00;03;54;26 - 00;04;11;25
Nicholas
So Owen I know, you know, we kind of both talked about sprays. It sounds like you're there and we're going to be there, you know, potentially going through the summer here on these beans. What are you looking at. How are you making decisions if it's a viable option to go out there is it surely I see a weed we're spraying it or what do you guys looking out on West.

00;04;11;26 - 00;04;26;24
Owen
You know. So spraying has been pretty spread out out here. I mean, we have some beans that got sprayed two and a half weeks ago. We got some beans that are getting sprayed today. So obviously I would like to wait at least a week, if not ten days to see, you know, what's going to happen to the water help.

00;04;26;25 - 00;04;49;08
Owen
In some scenarios where we have very heavy weed pressure, you run into the weeds on top, getting a good kill on those, but the weeds underneath not getting good coverage and not really doing much to those. That's a simple decision to go out and, you know, going to have to spray those weeds where you dig them but don't kill them is a little bit harder discussion, but still, you know, waiting at 7 to 10 days looking at water, hemp.

00;04;49;08 - 00;05;03;28
Owen
And does it look like there's new growth out of the bottom because, you know, to be honest, that's that's majority of what the weed issues is going to be is water. And then from there you can look at the stage on the bean and decide, do we do just liberty? Do we do liberty and list? What do we do again?

00;05;03;28 - 00;05;24;13
Owen
And then Agilent load. Unfortunately, the last probably ten days have not been super conducive for spraying Liberty. It's been cool. It's been a little bit cloudy, so you may see that Liberty not work as good as you add hope to. But honestly, you know, if you waited ten days to spray the water, hemp are going to be extremely large.

00;05;24;13 - 00;05;41;27
Owen
So most guys just had to spray and that's what it is. So we'll continue to walk fields and look and see if, you know, maybe this field needs spray. This one doesn't. Depending on what the weed pressure was and how our Preez worked. Those are the main things I look at when I look at a spray.

00;05;41;28 - 00;06;03;01
Nicholas
When you're talking about, you know, whether you're spraying Liberty and enlist, at what point are you not spraying another residual on this? Reese Bray is that you're just kind of going by timing, looking at how close the canopy, cause I know, I know, I'm always big and I don't like late season weeds. So if I'm making that trip, I see there's a value in always putting a residual in the tank if you're going out there to get the kill.

00;06;03;02 - 00;06;09;14
Nicholas
Do you look into that as well, or how are you just killing weeds? Or are you using the residual from earlier? Or what are you thinking on that end?

00;06;09;17 - 00;06;29;29
Owen
Really depends on situation by situation. Almost all, if not all, of our second pass had a pretty stiff residual in them. And so what I would do is look at are you killing new weeds? Are you killing weeds that didn't die? Because if you're killing weeds that didn't die and you don't have any new weeds coming, chances are your residuals doing its job.

00;06;30;01 - 00;06;51;18
Owen
At that point, I probably just put the liberty in the list in because, you know, right or wrong, there is a little bit of antagonize. The more products you add. That's just the nature of the beast when we spray earlier. So if you're trying to kill weeds that are already partially dead, they're harder to kill. You might be better off with just adjuvants, Liberty and the list comparatively.

00;06;51;18 - 00;07;08;01
Owen
Now, if you've got a bunch of flush of new water hemp coming, obviously we need more residuals. So that's a different story. So really you had to scout the field and then figure out what are we after. What's the stage of the beans? Are the beans almost closed. And we're just trying to get the water hemp that are there.

00;07;08;02 - 00;07;30;08
Owen
Are they 30 inch beans in a long ways from closing. That again is a different scenario. So maybe you give a little insight into what you see out east. But out here the the beans are getting some decent size. Every year there's more and more 15 inch beans. So a lot of those are getting close to closed. And that scenario, we're going to be doing a spray as soon as possible before those beans get closed.

00;07;30;08 - 00;07;37;18
Owen
Just because we want to try and get better coverage on those on those weeds or the 30 inch, maybe we wait a little longer on those.

00;07;37;19 - 00;07;56;03
Nicholas
And I think Melissa could probably second this. You know, our 30 inch beans, anywhere from 22 to 20, you know, around there seems there's there's a lot of ground showing in between the rows still. You know, I think that's going to progress here as we get some warmer weather, hopefully get out of this really wet ground that we've been having here with all the rains.

00;07;56;03 - 00;08;12;02
Nicholas
I think the beans will kind of take off here, but right now is yeah, we're looking at going in our second pass. There is a lot of time, I think, before they get to full canopy and you know, shade that ground out. So we're looking at really stiff residuals right now time frame wise for us Melissa what are you thinking on the the northeast portion there.

00;08;12;03 - 00;08;37;25
Melissa
Look less. You are exactly correct. I'm actually standing out in the field here now and there is a lot of space. The beans have made a lot of progress in growing upwards, but we've still got a good 2020 five inch gap on a majority of our fields to fill before. So going without a residual around here is not going to be the best foot forward, especially if they continue with these rains in the forecast and such.

00;08;37;25 - 00;08;52;07
Melissa
That way. Throwing back a question that you guys, when you're considering a spray, what stages do we want to get looking at for these beans before we have to look at what our tank mix partners? For growers out there listening.

00;08;52;09 - 00;09;14;24
Owen
I think the biggest thing is you're looking at are they are they are one. Are they starting to bloom, are they are to full bloom, etc.. We really hope we aren't getting into R3 because that means we're spraying really, really late. So looking at those things and then looking at the label on Enlist and Liberty and then honestly looking at, okay, if if we don't spray, what kind of problem are we going to create?

00;09;14;24 - 00;09;39;15
Owen
Because I've seen it time and time again where, you know, maybe we don't spray and we're paying for those water hemp seeds for the next three, 4 or 5 years out here, especially, now is the time. It may seem a little early especially you guys are making your second pass, but we're onto our third pass. Some of these beings have been sprayed a second time beginning of June, so we really need to decide do we spray again or do we think we'll be good for the rest of the year?

00;09;39;15 - 00;09;59;18
Owen
And one thing I would comment on is, you know, you guys talk about how you all have a lot of space in between rows. I think one of the probably bigger differences is we've really in this area and started to see a lot of guys plant beans before corn. Now this year was a little bit cooler, but we've got a lot of beans that were planted that last or second to last week in April.

00;09;59;18 - 00;10;11;06
Owen
And so, you know, those beans have been out there two months now. So if they're not closed yet, we're almost going to have to start looking at a third pass just because of the sheer amount of time that they've been in the ground.

00;10;11;08 - 00;10;30;01
Melissa
So with that in mind, Owen, everybody is pushing the planting date and pushing it earlier and earlier. Do you think the reason we're having to come back on the third pass is because they are pushing that planting date, so that first application is going so much earlier. Is our weed pressure getting higher or is it a combination effect?

00;10;30;03 - 00;10;57;04
Owen
Somewhat of a combination here, talking to anybody that's in eastern Iowa, especially in northeastern Iowa, our water hemp here is significantly and I mean significantly worse than what is up there. We have guys that just plan on a three pass because they know that the water hemp pressure is that bad. If you've had issues in your corn before, we deal with a ton of seed corn around here, which creates a water hemp issue, unfortunately.

00;10;57;05 - 00;11;15;22
Owen
And then I think the other thing is, you know, if you look at planting beans on April 20th and you're spraying them on April 15th, you're going to spray your second pass, hopefully May 20th or May 25th if they aren't closed, which they may not be by June 20th, you're looking at time you would need another residual or another pass.

00;11;15;22 - 00;11;31;25
Owen
So I think they both intertwined with each other. If you've got a really weedy field and you're planting it early, it might be time to just think about three passes. But if you've got a really good clean field, you might get away with two paths, especially if you have 15 or 20 inch beans, which are a lot of.

00;11;31;25 - 00;11;38;27
Owen
So it's a field by field scenario and something that you just got to walk the fields and see what's out there.

00;11;39;00 - 00;11;52;27
Nicholas
Oh, and I know you mentioned antagonism with your tank mixes and the more you put in there, are you guys seeing any disease in the beans or. I know if you usually go, you guys had some spider mites. Are we too early to really watch for that and kind of pay for that trip with taking care of two things?

00;11;52;27 - 00;11;56;06
Nicholas
Or are you more worried about weeds and not seeing the disease yet?

00;11;56;08 - 00;12;15;25
Owen
Definitely more worried about the weeds, not really seeing any disease. The only thing that I would consider spraying early for would be, you know, if you have a white mold issue, which you guys probably honestly have more issues than we do, and there's a couple newer products that you would sprayed R1, but honestly less the beans are early, maturity planted early.

00;12;15;26 - 00;12;41;23
Owen
We're not seeing a fully into our one, definitely seeing blooms, but not enough that I would pull that trigger yet. Now maybe by the end of next week, you know you could kill two birds with one stone if you're if you're doing an R one pass but fungicide honestly, in less there's a reason to go super early. Your best bang for your buck is R3, which is probably a month from now, and I think you get easy pay for the pass with what you gain.

00;12;41;24 - 00;13;02;20
Owen
You know, waiting. Insects really haven't seen hardly any spider mites or more of a dry issue. So unless we dry off significantly, I don't think we'll see any of those aphids. It's really, really early for that. And if you put product on now, you'd probably have residual that wouldn't carry you to that point plus rain off. So I think your best bet is to worry about the weeds.

00;13;02;20 - 00;13;25;13
Owen
Like I said, unless you're in a scenario where you have heavy white mold pressure, we've had a lot of rain, a lot of splashing up, that's definitely going to be a concern as we move forward. So if it lines up there, you're at for one, I would definitely be something that you would consider, but that's a case by case basis, not on every field.

00;13;25;15 - 00;13;43;17
Nicholas
That's all for this week's crop talk by. Yes. Thanks for tuning in. If any of our listeners have questions, feel free to email them to crop talk and innovative com. Be sure to like, follow and subscribe so you don't miss next week's update. And if you know a fellow grower who would value a quick field snapshot, share this episode with them.

00;13;43;18 - 00;13;56;08
Nicholas
For more agronomy resources and to connect with your local IaaS team, visit innovative and follow Innovative AG Services on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn. We'll catch you next week on Crop Talk.